High school students might be asking themselves the following:

• What’s an impressive amount of service hours?
• How many service hours do I need to be competitive in applying to college?
• What counts as service hours?

These are the questions that came up when I googled “required service-learning hours.” This is what I’m wondering about: what are the outcomes we want for our young people as they engage in meaningful service-learning?  

I think service-learning can be transformational for a young person. When a student finds an issue or community problem they care about and follows the service-learning IPARD process, they see themselves as a problem solver.  (To access more information on IPARD, sign up for the Resource Library and search “IPARD.”) They see the experience as one where they learn about themselves, build leadership skills and make a difference in their community. They apply what they are learning in their classroom to real world issues.  

It’s intrinsic – not something they do to just build their resume or transcript.

Students and teachers might view required service or service-learning hours as just one more box to check off. One student commented to his mother upon her prodding him to turn in his required service hours:

“You know mom, you’re not supposed to be doing community service just so you can tell someone you did them. They’ve made it like homework now, when you should be doing it because of the impact it has, not because it was assigned and you just need to turn it in.”

Harvard’s School of Education’s Making Caring Common Project helps us think about how to structure service experiences to promote ethical character. Turning the Tide, Inspiring Concern for Others and the Common Good through College Admissions offers recommendations for reshaping the admission process. The report suggests that admissions offices prioritize quality – not quantity – of service experiences. Meaningful and sustained service that emerges from a students’ passion and interest might hold more weight than the number of hours a student accrues.  

When, and if, you are requiring service or service-learning hours, consider the following:

1. How does this requirement lead to meeting academic or learning goals?
2. What are other student outcomes that you hope the experience can elicit?
3. How could the student service experiences include working collaboratively with other students or community partners?
4. How can you build in the service-learning process of IPARD – Investigation, Planning and Preparation, Action, Reflection and Demonstration?  
5. Don’t forget the R – Reflection. How can you use Reflection as a way to deepen the experience for students?
6. How can students “do with” rather than “do for” a community that could lead to a deeper understanding of social structures and inequalities?

I’m eager to hear your thoughts on how you use required service and service-learning hours in your school.  Please feel free to email me at jrbascom@nylc.org.

And to learn more about how to integrate the IPARD process into your required service-learning, sign up for our Educator Institute this summer as we explore how to pump up youth engagement in the classroom through service-learning!

The post Required Service-Learning Hours – What’s in it for Young People? first appeared on National Youth Leadership Council.

In the United States, students are sitting in class alone with only the names of their classmates on a computer screen to keep them company because nobody turns on their cameras. This lack of engagement has led to students struggling —  academically, socially, and emotionally. The impacts for low-income and minority students are even more exacerbated due to access to technology and home environments that may not allow for a quiet place to study or participate in class. According to a recent report from RAND Corporation, in high-poverty schools, 1 in 3 teachers state their students are significantly less prepared for grade-level work this year compared to last year and the long-term effects are yet unknown (2020). Some sources estimate that the average students could lose five to nine months of learning by the end of the school year, with students of color losing even more.

Through all of this turmoil in education, there have been glimmers of hope. Protests of the killing of black and brown people across the United States has resulted in curriculum changes, renewed energy in conversations on race, equity, and inclusion in our school systems, and an acknowledgement of the need for teachers to have the skill set to facilitate difficult conversations on racism and anti-Black racism.

This examination of school curricula through the lens of racial inequity has prompted NYLC to re-evaluate how service-learning can address racial stereotypes, specifically how to avoid the often well-intentioned but misguided “missionary ideology” when working with communities.

Missionary ideology is defined as “one group trying to impose its ideas on another group, with little or no consideration of that group’s traditions, beliefs, and needs. It most frequently refers to working cross-culturally – involving groups of different ethnic, cultural, religious, or socioeconomic backgrounds.” (National Youth Leadership Council, 2007).

Service-learning is an experiential form of education where students are led through the IPARD (Investigation, Planning & Preparation, Action, Reflection, and Demonstration) process to address a genuine community need. Key to an effective non-missionary service-learning experience is the quality of the investigation, preparation, and reflection student experiences.

Effective service-learning prepares students for all aspects of their service experience including identifying the assets of the community and working in partnership with community members to address root causes of an issue (National Youth Leadership Council, 2007). In fact, Root & Billig (2007) discovered that students found meaning in their service when they interact with individuals faced with personal difficulties, confronting examples of injustice or encountering inefficient policies. These types of interactions seem to help students invest in an issue emotionally and move from an egocentric to a more sociocentric perspective on the word. In other words, quality service-learning empowers students as change agents on social issues by engaging them in meaningful service to the community that views community as equal partners and addresses root causes of issues.

The year 2020 has primed us for deep-seated change in public education. We must ensure that we embrace the connection between education and opportunity. NYLC remains deeply committed to our work as we look to address inequities across systems and ensure that every child has access to a high-quality education that includes the opportunity to develop the leadership skills to create a more just, sustainable, and peaceful world.

The post 2020: A Year Unlike Any Other first appeared on National Youth Leadership Council.

Stage two in the service-learning process, determining acceptable evidence, is an often-overlooked stage in quality service-learning. In the classroom, it can be an “automatic” part of the practice. We connect acceptable evidence to formative (ongoing and more informal quizzes, observations and exit tickets) and summative formal and structured assessments. In out-of-school programs, we also can and must look at what we hope young people will know and be able to do as a result of the service-learning experience.

If your desired outcome is a specific content standard, tests and other assessments can give you a picture of whether students are achieving the goal. In the classroom or outside the classroom, there are other “artifacts of learning” that can be used to understand student growth.

For instance, if developing teamwork in your classroom or out-of-school program is a goal, what would that look like? Might you be able to observe instances where young people problem- solved as a group? How well did they listen to each other? What were their strategies to resolve conflict? These items can also be put into a rubric or checklist to measure growth — and shared with the young people early in the process.

If you hope that young people will use their skills and talents to address and solve community problems, how might you use reflection activities as a way to assess? I’ve listened to spoken word pieces, read student written scripts, and viewed outdoor murals as reflection and action. I also see these artifacts as ways to gauge how young people use their abilities to express themselves, create awareness, and advocate about an issue that is important to them.

Another way to interpret reflection activities and assess growth is in the final stage of the IPARD process, demonstration. When young people demonstrate what they learned and how they served, they are providing an opportunity for you to observe the impact they have made. Often called “demonstrations of learning,” these opportunities for school or program-wide science fair-type activities offer a chance for the community to see how young people are making a difference. They allow the greater community to welcome, partner, and support growing leaders.

And if you really want to understand where a young person stands on their desired outcomes, ask them. Be an interviewer: Model how to ask open-ended questions and allow for self-assessment of those skills. In the process, you both address Stage One in the Service-Learning Process – establishing learning objectives and Stage Two: determining acceptable evidence.

As the four stages approach to the service-learning process illustrates, service-learning can be a transformational experience — both for the community and the student.

The post Acceptable Evidence: What Does What Look Like? first appeared on National Youth Leadership Council.

Service-learning allows for meaningful learning opportunities for youth through contribution to community. It empowers young people to address issues they see in their school, in their community, or around the world. It provides them an opportunity to feel empowered, to share their voice, and to engage in the civic process. When students have service-learning experiences, they build a commitment to life-long service.

To ensure service-learning experiences continue in these uncertain times, we have put together best practices for online service-learning. We want the process of service-learning to be done with quality so that it continues to meet the needs of students and educators alike.

Online Service-Learning Best Practices:

• Set norms for how you will work together. Be clear expectations, communication, and behaviors.
• Cultivate belonging. We know relationships matter so pay close attention to strategies that build relationships like one-on-one interactions, small group discussions, and discussion boards.
• Focus on the process of service-learning, not the platform. The pedagogy of service-learning engages students in the learning process, gives them a voice, and builds their connection to each other and the community.
• Identify what learning outcomes you want for your students (academic, civic, social-emotional, etc.)
• Determine how you will know they have met learning outcomes. (What criteria will you use? What evidence will you collect? How will you assess learning at the end of the experience?)
• Then, facilitate students through the IPARD process:
  • Investigation: students need to understand root causes of the issue they want to address. Understanding why the problem exists is an essential part of the problem-solving process. Much of investigation can be done remotely. Students can read articles, interview experts via phone, send out community surveys, or scour the internet for information (learning to distinguish between fact and opinion).
  • Planning & Preparation: planning is fundamental to ensuring students are ready serve as a cohesive team. Technology is made for collaboration and teamwork. Students create timelines, task lists, budgets and more.
  • Action: the service part of service-learning does not have to be direct (in-person). In-direct service activities like raising funds or supplies are great ways to do service. Partnering with a local nonprofit that has safety protocols in place for receiving donations ensures student safety. Advocating or educating others about your issue is another way to safely serve remotely.
  • Reflection: learning does not come from the act of service but in thinking about the experience itself.  Whether personal, small group, or the entire class, reflection reinforces student learning outcomes. Reflection can be written, visual, auditory, or more.
  • Demonstration: sharing students’ experiences is an important culmination of the service-learning process. Technology allows students to be creative in telling their story and allows them to share broadly. Whether students create storyboards or podcasts, write a blog or newspaper article, or develop a play or music performance. Demonstration provides evidence of student learning and effect on the community issue.
• Together, the students and teacher then assess the success of their experience. Did students meet the learning outcomes? Did they meet the community need? What worked? What would you have done differently?
• Lastly, try different technology engagement strategies.  Start with a few that you know and then don’t be afraid to experiment.  Ask your students if they have any platforms that they prefer.  Maybe even have one of the young people lead the experience.

When teachers lead students through the process of service-learning whether online, in person, or a hybrid of both, students will gain the knowledge and skills to become civically informed and engaged citizens who have the know-how to make the world a better place.

The post Best Practices for Online Service-Learning first appeared on National Youth Leadership Council.